TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Several articles of Review are unavoidably deferred till our next Num ber; in which also will appear the Vindication of King Charles the first and Archbishop Laud, Scrutator on a late Visitation Sermon, &c. &c.

The reservation of Private Right, mentioned by J. R. is most readily admitted.

ERRATA IN OUR LAST.

In the Magazine for July, page 29, line 7, the words "of the gospel" should have been inserted after" authors."

In the note, page 87, for August for zagnxeλ80nxetoig read

Page 147, line 23, for Cambridge read CAMBRIDGE.

Page 157, line 6 from the bottom, for “Sanner" read “Tanner.”

ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

MAGAZINE AND REVIEW,

FOR OCTOBER, 1806.

Let us now praise famous men :-men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies: leaders of the people, by their counsels and their knowlege of learning meet for the people, wise and eloquent in their instructions.

Memoirs of the Right Reverend SAMUEL HORSLEY, LL.D. F.R. and A.S. late Lord Bishop of St. Asaph.

T has been truly observed by the great Archbishop

sons, the virtues of whose lives have been bright and examplary, is not only a piece of justice due to the dead, but an act of great charity to the living."

Nothing, certainly, is better calculated to excite in the mind an admiration of learning, virtue, and religion, than the perusal of the memoirs of persons who have distinguished themselves in their respective generations as "the lights of the world."

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When such luminaries are withdrawn from this hemisphere to shine in a superior region, it becomes a duty in their survivors to record a memorial of their virtues and of their actions, that posterity, instead of enquiring after them in vain, may study to live as they lived, to tread in some degree in their footsteps, and having obtained Vol. XI. Churchm. Mag. for Oct. 1806. Ii "grace

grace to follow their good examples, may become with them partakers of the heavenly kingdom.'

The loss of pre-eminently great and good men, while it unavoidably occasions regret, will, if thus duly improved, become real gain and substantial benefit to contemporaries, as well as to future generations; for by the faithful delineation of their lives and characters, in conjunction with their literary remains and works of piety and of love, they will continue to "speak energetically even from the silent tomb."

If this principle had been duly felt and attended to in former days, we should not have to lament, as we now have, the scanty notices which remain with regard to the lives and circumstances of some of the most brilliant ornaments of religion and learning. Of very many by whose labours every age continues to profit, nothing more is known than names, so negligent were their immediate friends and intimates, or so little was their true value estimated in their own times.

The following humble attempt to do some justic o the memory of a truly great man, will, it is hoped, be received with candid indulgence, even though it shall be found not so full and exact as the important subject requires.

But the extraordinary services rendered by him to the church of Christ, his indefatigable zeal in the cause of social order and religious truth, the astonishing variety and extent of his talents, and the high value of his literary performances, will be our excuse for bringing forward thus early "a votive tablet" to his memory. Time and friendship will, without doubt, erect a more stable and splendid monument to his honour; and should, as is devoutly to be wished, a uniform collection of his works be presented to the world, an ample memoir of the venerable author must be prefixed thereto, in order to render it complete.

Dr. SAMUEL HORSLEY was the eldest son of a clergyman who formerly officiated as reader at St. Martin's church in the Fields, and whose circumstances were, from want of preferment, very confined. The family came originally from the west of England; and we have heard that the grandfather of the bishop had been a noncon formist, but afterwards joined in communion with the church of England. Notwithstanding

Notwithstanding the coincidence of name, the learned author of the Britannia Romana, Mr. John Horsley, was no ways related to the bishop. This it is the more proper to mention, because the contrary has been asserted. That industrious and ingenious antiquary was a native of Northumberland, and was educated in Scotland, where he took the degree of master of arts, and then became the teacher of a Presbyterian congregation in the north of England.

Dr. Horsley was born in the year 1781, and received his grammatical education partly in a private seminary, and partly at Westminster school, where he "profited above most of his contemporaries," particularly in the Greek language, in which his attainments were deep and solid; so that he might well say, as he did many years after, in his own strong language," that he was inueh at much home in Greek."

From Westminster he removed to the university of Cambridge; and in that famous seat of mathematical learning, he applied, with close assiduity, to the profoundest depths and intricacies of the science of analytics; not contenting himself with reading the best modern mathematicians, but going back to the antient geometrical writers, as Euclid, Apollonius, Archimedes, Theodosius, Diophantus, Pappus, &c.

But though this was undoubtedly his favourite study, it was not pursued to the neglect of those branches of learning which were more necessarily connected with that sacred profession for which he was intended, and to which he had a predominant inclination. His theological studies, however, in a considerable degree, bore a resemblance to the line he had adopted in his mathematical researches: passing cursorily over the modern systems and disquisitions, he applied to a careful reading of the antient ecclesiastical historians, and the more early fathers of the Christian church. This was beginning at the fountain-head, and following the stream in its various course, by which means the aberrations from, and corruptions of the truth, were more accurately discerned, and precisely determined.

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With a mind so strongly formed and cautiously disposed, it is not to be wondered at that on some points of Christian doctrine he should at first waver; for who, with

a single eye to the discovery of truth merely for its own sake, has ever entered deeply into theological enquiries without occasional doubt and perplexity? But though doubt will arise, it is not to be encouraged any farther than as a stimulus to urge the mind to closer and keener enquiry. The reason why so many men become heretics and infidels, is because they cherish their first doubts, and let them become at last ruling opinions. This was not the case with Mr. Horsley; though he was perplexed by the mysteries of religion, and wished to get rid of them by supposing a figure in the Scripture phraseology, this did not satisfy him. His mode of explication he had the judgment to discern, and the candour to own was harsh and uncertain; and Butler's analogy at last cured him of looking for nothing mysterious in the true sense of a divine revelation.

In

After this he began to study the Platonic writers, whose acquaintance soon brought him into a right mind. But the doctrine of the Trinity appears still to have had its difficulties; and he began to waver between the Arian tenets in their original extent, and the true faith. this state of suspense and enquiry he first opened that ma gazine of Arian arguments and authorities, quotations and perversions, Dr. Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity. From the serious perusal of this book, which has completely unhinged the loose faith of so many theological sciolists, our student arose a firm and decided Tri

nitarian *.

It were well if all persons intended for the sacred function would thus previously weigh and examine the primary articles of doctrine which before their admission into that office they are obliged to subscribe. It were well also if they would give themselves more to the reading of the writings of the early fathers and ecclesiastical historians, by which course of study they would lay a sure foundation, and be guarded against numerous errors by which those minds are likely to be warped, who -confine their attention to systems and doctors of modern date. By beginning at the wrong end, and studying as a chief consequence the elucidations of Christian faith contained in the works of divines of particular churches,

* Letters to Priestley, Letter XVII. p. 162.